Investigate the Public's Attitude Toward Green Infrastructure Implementation

Stormwater events occur more frequently with higher intensity than previously seen as a result of climate change and urbanization. Although grey infrastructure such as sewer networks can accommodate a good amount of water and reduce flood risk, it can also cause downstream flooding and increase the chance of pollutants entering water bodies. To reduce the stormwater before it reaches the sewer system and improves water quality, green infrastructure (GI), such as rain gardens and infiltration basins, is gained intensive attention as an efficient and sustainable method. Since the success of GI is highly dependent on the public's attitude and satisfaction, many survey studies targeting residents have been conducted in the US to investigate the influencing factors of GI adoption. To help policymakers better understand the pattern of residents' opinions and obtain further insights, we 1) conduct a systematic review of previous survey studies in the US regions (10 regions provided by FEMA) and identify regional factors that might affect residents' willingness to adopt GI; 2) use an online survey to collect the latest opinion toward GI from residents in Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania as a case study and compare our results with previous survey studies. Our key findings are: 1) previous survey results show that the annual income is positively correlated with the willingness-to-pay (WTP) to adopt GI in the Mid-Atlantic and Lower Midwest, and educational level is positively correlated with GI adoption in the Northwest and Mountain if GI is provided for free; 2) three influencing factors: flood experienced frequency, existing GI ownership, and neighborhood influence are positively correlated with the WTP and adopting GI in our case study area; 3) the literature review and our own survey show some inconsistency patterns in influencing factors such as the correlation between age and GI adoption.